Man Says He Let Someone Hunt Behind His Backyard — Then Cameras Started Getting Stolen and Tree Stand Gear Went Missing

A hunter on Reddit said he and his cousin had hunted the woods behind his backyard for about eight years, so this was not some brand-new setup they were still figuring out. It was familiar ground. The kind of place where you know the trails, know where deer like to move, and know where your gear is supposed to be. Then one day, his cousin spotted somebody sitting in his treestand. At first, he figured it had to be someone they knew. There was another friend who also had permission to hunt back there, so maybe it was him. But the longer it went on, the less that explanation made sense. (reddit.com)

Then the smaller things started happening. The hunter said a camera memory card went missing. Not the whole camera. Just the card. That kind of thing feels personal in a different way, because it tells you somebody did not just stumble through the area. They handled your gear. They knew what they were taking. Around the same time, another friend had climbing sticks disappear from a tree stand too. By then, it was getting harder to pretend somebody was only passing through. (reddit.com)

The whole thing was made messier by the fact that the land behind his house was public ground. So this was not a clean trespassing story where a guy could just say, “That’s my property, get out.” The other hunter had a right to be there. That was part of what made it so frustrating. The issue was not somebody legally hunting the same woods. It was the feeling that somebody had started treating other people’s stands and gear like they were fair game. (reddit.com)

The hunter asked Reddit what he should do, and the replies came in fast. A bunch of people told him to call a game warden. Others said to get law enforcement involved and not try to handle it alone, especially if the guy was already bold enough to climb into someone else’s stand and things were going missing around him. One commenter even warned him not to confront the guy by himself. (reddit.com)

There were a few complications, though. One commenter pointed out that on some public land, hunters are not allowed to leave stands or blinds out at all. Another said that depending on the state, leaving equipment on public land can create gray areas about what other people can use, even if stealing parts or memory cards is a different matter. The hunter answered that in his area, tree stands could stay up during season but had to come down afterward. (reddit.com)

So instead of charging in and making it worse, he said the plan was to film it. That may end up being the smartest part of the whole thing. Because once a situation turns into “he said, he said,” people can act clueless real quick. Missing gear is one thing. Catching somebody in the act is another. (reddit.com)